LOCAL GOVERNMENT SUMMIT: The level of government with the greatest responsibility, local government, has the least capacity in terms of skills, finance and agency. In California, Mark Pisano, a long time director of the state’s largest regional planning agency, sought to overcome similar barriers by working with then Governor Jerry Brown to legislate Climate Resilient Districts (CRDs).
Dr Spencer has penned the following article as an insight into his address at TFE’s Local Government, Net Zero and Resilient Communities summit.
The first problem we have with implementing climate adaptation, Mark Pisano tells me from Los Angeles, is that there isn’t a clear customer. Sure, lots of people are talking about adaptation, many are doing adaptation things, but who is taking ownership of the challenges communities face from a warming climate and increasing disasters?
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Mark speaks with some authority. Currently co-chair of the Standing Panel on Intergovernmental Relations at the National Academy of Public Administration, he spent 31 years as executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the US’s largest regional planning agency.
His comment causes me to reflect on the 2012 intergovernmental agreement signed off by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) setting out responsibilities between different levels of government for adaptation. Yes, there it is, everyone has responsibilities for adaptation, but no one is responsible.
The level of government with the greatest responsibility, local government, has the least capacity in terms of skills, finance and agency.
The Colvin Review of Disaster Funding estimated the cost of disasters will rise from $12 billion in 2023-24 to more than $40 billion in 2049-50, while the annual cost to the federal budget will be $9 billion. Add in slow-moving climate impacts and you could double those numbers.
Costs are borne by everyone; we all pay with higher insurance premiums. For some, insurance has become too expensive, and they are either under insuring or not insuring at all. This has a flow-on to mortgages as homes and businesses can’t borrow against uninsured assets. The Reserve Bank has raised concerns about fiscal stability.
It has implications for the tax base for local government. Climate-adapted communities will attract residents and businesses due to lower insurance costs and security. This will drive property prices. Other communities face higher costs and declining property values and loss of population. This will reshape patterns of development.
Australia continues to prioritise recovery and repair over prevention and adaptation. Colvin found only 7 per cent of disaster funding was spent on disaster risk reduction and resilience. Zero was spent on prevention.
Both Colvin and the earlier Glasser Review of disaster governance found the lack of a home – or customer in Pisano’s words – for resilience at a national level undermined efficiency and coherence in preparing for rapidly accelerating climate and disaster risks. This is evident at all levels of government.
There is substantial academic and grey literature on the need for local leadership of adaptation and resilience. While climate mitigation (reducing greenhouse emissions) can work to global targets, impacts of climate change are different for different locations and communities have different values and priorities for how they want to respond.
This is acknowledged on the federal government Climate Adaptation in Australia web page where it says: “Successful climate adaptation should:
- be place-based, community-led and values driven – tailored to the affected areas and communities
- involve everyone – governments, households, businesses and community organisations all have a role
- be underpinned by science and analysis – to make decisions, priorities adaptation actions and choose the best response.
As Katrina Graham, who works with local governments in northern Tasmania on adaptation pointed out recently, we should not assume local government can lead on adaptation. At least, not as they are currently set-up; they lack agency across the range of adaptation responses, they lack skills and capabilities, and they lack finance.
Local government is certainly on the frontline. In preparation for a recent webinar, Value Advisory Partners tallied 330 climate-related disaster events in Australia between 2019 and 2024 leading to 2200 LGA disaster declarations. One council had 25 declarations. Nine events accounted for two thirds of the $20 billion cost to government.
In August 2024 a survey by Local Government NSW found only 48 per cent of metropolitan LGAs who responded (about two thirds) had an adaptation budget and only 12 per cent of regional LGAs had an adaptation budget. Adaptation action the councils said, only happened when it was resourced by grants from other levels of government.
Common barriers to adaptation were lack of funding, lack of staff, inconsistent approaches at other levels of government, lack of capabilities and uncertainty about the role of local government. Enablers were a budget, external funding, understanding of costs and benefits, internal leadership and involvement of external organisations.
In California, Mark Pisano sought to overcome similar barriers by working with then Governor Jerry Brown to legislate Climate Resilient Districts (CRDs). CRDs fostered collaboration, recognised that climate impacts did not respect jurisdictional boundaries and that local organisations required authority or agency to lead.
CRD legislation created the legal basis for new institutions that were not new levels of government but a form of public joint venture between cities and countries, Tribal Nations and special districts with authority to act, fund and bundle assistance from other levels of government and the private sector for integrated investment programs.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority (RA) recently released its Disaster Adaptation Plan Guidelines that promote regional, place-based and community focused adaptation planning. Victoria has also prepared regional adaptation plans. The approach is very top-down. (“the RA will lead”) and shallow on implementation and finance.
As with the Victorian regional plans, finance for implementation is a showstopper. Neither NSW nor Victoria is in a strong financial position. Climate impacts involve great uncertainty, making it less likely adaptation action could meet requirements for “a business case” “considered by the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet”.
The difference with California’s CRDs is that these are focused on providing local agency to local collaborations to lead on adaptation, as well as the ability to channel, local, state, federal and private funds in a coordinated manner across jurisdictional boundaries.
Joint Organisations of councils, created under NSW law, already exist and are active on climate issues. They have the legal powers of a statutory corporation. At this stage, NSW only sees them as potential partners to the NSW RA.
The NSW government has also recently passed the Community Improvement District Act 2025 that may also provide a framework for action although these are currently directed toward economic development activities with advice from small business.
In other states, Climate Alliances are partnerships that bring local governments and agencies together to act on shared climate challenges. Victoria has a network of alliances while other states are trialling similar arrangements. They do not have the legal status of joint organisations but could have their authority extended by legislation.
What is clear is that successful implementation of locally led adaptation will require new institutions that can bring together skills and capability, liaise with other levels of government and science agencies, hold community trust and legitimacy, and source private and government funds to apply to an agreed set of priority adaptation actions.
When the federal government finally overcomes its reluctance to release the National Climate Risk Assessment and Adaptation Plan, the demand for urgent action to address both disaster resilience and climate adaptation through a dedicated set of institutions in a way that builds local leadership, skills, finance and agency will only increase.
